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In general a problem is that wealthier people have the time, energy, and expertise to manipulate the system better than poorer people. Another place we see it i

• jcims 7y ago
  I doubt they have more time and energy, but they do have more resources to engage advisors and experts to act on their behalf.
  • philipov 7y ago
    same thing, the point is that money buys time and energy.
  • Ancalagon 7y ago
    When bus rides take 1 hour each way, you can be sure wealthier people have more time and energy
  • UncleMeat 7y ago
    Wealthy people don't need to work a side gig. They get paid vacation. They can afford homes with shorter commutes. They can pay for services like cleaning to free up time for other stuff. They probably have parents with more free time (due to wealth) to take care of their kids. They can afford preschool. All that means more time.
  • JustSomeNobody 7y ago
    > I doubt they have more time and energy You'd be wrong. The poor are working two jobs. The poor are begging their boss for a couple hours off to go stand in line to get their kids on medicaid. The poor are walking to the bus stop. The poor are rushing to the apartment manager to give them partial rent so they still have a roof over their head. Time is something the poor have very little of. Edit: I see some of you drive by disagree with me. I see this all the time as foster parents. The poor are much more likely to be in a situation where their children are removed and so talking with the bio parents, I hear their struggles. But keep drive by disagreeing with me if that makes you feel better.
    • dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Those people don't need to engage in legal shenanigans to qualify for student aid. Also, you can do medicaid over the internet/phone/mail these days. Unless you have a problem with the workflow that prevents you from using these systems you should never have to speak to anyone in person. Or at least that's how it is in my state. Edit: Since I'm apparently so wrong does anyone want to tell me what kind of legal shenanigans people who are poor enough to qualify for financial aid need to go through other than filling out the forms truthfully?
  • shanecleveland 7y ago
    I don't doubt that they have more time and energy.
  • bcrosby95 7y ago
    Hired help is huge. We made friends with some parents in the same family situation as us (baby twins + 3 year old). But they're really well off, and we're California "middle class". Our daily chores between the wife and I take a total of about 2 hours. And getting the kids ready to go anywhere can take 30-60 minutes of prep. If you have a maid that comes daily and a nanny for each kid, you're saving around 3 hours per day.
    • perl4ever 7y ago
      Back in the day, you could work your way through college, not having money, by being a nanny.
  • asdff 7y ago
    Kobe bryant literally flew helicopters to the staples center while everyone else in that arena without helicopter money might have waited an hour+ in traffic and rescheduled their life around that to get to the same game. Time is money and money buys you time.
• hodgesrm 7y ago
  A more basic root cause is that college has become so expensive that there's incredibly strong economic motivation to cheat. Lack of morals is perhaps an equal contributor. The gaming described in the article was nauseating.
  • snambi 7y ago
    This is not cheating. What they are doing is legal. It may not be moral. But, hey, who am I to judge others.
    • inscionent 7y ago
      If you are a member of a free and open society; It is your job to curtail behavior, yours and others, that is detrimental to that society.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • glofish 7y ago
        but what if the society is not quite free or open, and tries to push you in directions that are not good for you.
        • inscionent 7y ago
          "A FIRM Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection. It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutions by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived contrast to the furious storms that are to succeed. If now and then intervals of felicity open to view, we behold them with a mixture of regret, arising from the reflection that the pleasing scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestuous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a transient and fleeting brilliancy, they at the same time admonish us to lament that the vices of government should pervert the direction and tarnish the lustre of those bright talents and exalted endowments for which the favored soils that produced them have been so justly celebrated." Federalist #9 My advice. Stay calm, stay true, speak truth to power, protect the disadvantaged
• wcunning 7y ago
  Such is the nature of people. My father worked in property tax assessing, so I've known about the specific rules in Michigan and how to minimize my personal tax bill for my entire life. If you build a system with a bunch of complex rules, someone will adjust to optimize their outcomes under those rules. Just look at building permits in any heavily populated location, from both the perspective of the person applying and the neighbors.
  • Zaheer 7y ago
    > I've known about the specific rules in Michigan and how to minimize my personal tax bill Any tips? :)
    • hammock 7y ago
      Here's a tip from Illinois: https://www.npr.org/2018/10/03/654201077/illinois-gov-candidate-removed-mansions-toilets-to-dodge-taxes-report-finds https://www.npr.org/2018/10/03/654201077/illinois-gov-candid...
    • wcunning 7y ago
      File the permanent residence exception, learn the Mathieu Gast rules for normal maintenance and repairs, and always fight the tax assessor on the first year you own a property, up through Board of Review and Tax Tribunal if you have to.
    • asdff 7y ago
      Please hold off until after flint has clean water.
      • wcunning 7y ago
        Property taxes pay for local government, state income tax and sales tax pay for state government. If you live in the city of Flint (why would you if you don't have to at this point?) then it's maybe unethical to minimize your tax burden. On the other hand if you live in the city of Flint, your property value is so low that you're basically not paying taxes anyway... That's a whole different problem that what's being discussed here.
• hammock 7y ago
  >In general a problem is that wealthier people have the time, energy, and expertise to manipulate the system better than poorer people. Notwithstanding its own merits, this argument is a non sequitur. This is not a case of rich people affording a maneuver that poor people can't. Poor people won't ever be in the situation where they have to separate from their kid in order to qualify for financial aid. In that sense, poor people have an advantage.
  • DougN7 7y ago
    There are a lot of people in the middle though that aren’t poor but can’t play the shenanigans the rich get away with.
  • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    It's not a non sequitur. In the case of tax loopholes, sure. Poor people don't pay a lot of taxes. But in the case of spending real money paying for tutoring to raise SAT scores: yes. SAT scores, in some sense, are a transactional measure of the free resources one has available to obtain a good score: A quiet place to study, tutoring, etc. Money helps provide these things.
  • nathanvanfleet 7y ago
    I think the point is that you have poorer people who qualify, and rich people who can organize and pay to manipulate the situation. Then there are people in between, people who don't qualify, but also who don't have the ability to manipulate the system. Furthermore, that rich people are taking advantage of programs meant for poorer people is ultimately an unethical thing to do.
  • MegaButts 7y ago
    That doesn't quite apply here, because it seems pretty obvious the intent of these laws was to help out those less advantaged. Now those that have means have figured out a way to take away something from those less advantaged in order to enrich themselves even more. Financial aid is limited - every time a rich person gets aid a poor person doesn't. And even worse, this isn't even just trying to get admitted in the first place. If that were the situation, then it would be much more understandable as rich and poor alike both want the best education for their children. But now the rich don't have to pay full price for the education and take advantage of a program designed for those with less money? I get what they're doing is (almost certainly) legal and everybody wants to minimize their bill, but they are directly harming the people who actually need it in this case. The argument "poor people have an advantage" in receiving benefits designed solely for poor people is absurd - there shouldn't be competition between rich and poor here at all.
• inscionent 7y ago
  Power. It is called power. They have power. They use power to consolidate and bequest power.
• technothrasher 7y ago
  > Another place we see it is in the usage of IEPs and other accommodations for learning disabilities by wealthy families As the father of a child with a learning disability, I was shocked to learn that the process of getting public funding to help him (which in MA at least, is a legal right spelled out in state law) is entirely centered around the local school district attempting to drag everything out as long as possible and make it as hard as possible so that you have to spend quite a bit of money in advocates, experts, medical professionals, lawyers, etc. Their entire game is to wait you out until your bank account runs dry. I'm fortunate in that I'm wealthy enough to be able to front the money to drag the school district to court and force them to pay (though I'm only a bit more than a year into what is likely a 2-3 year process). But it became immediately obvious that anybody less fortunate is just simply screwed. Poor families with children that have moderate disabilities will never, ever get the funding.
• roland35 7y ago
  My spouse is a special ed teacher so this is based on my experience only... but I think it is more a factor of the school having more time and resources available. The school district my spouse worked at sadly has many more children from single parent and poor households and this essentially raises the bar on who they can qualify. My own city's school district does not have as many students like this, so milder cases still tend to qualify. There are certainly standards in place which should standardize this across school district lines, but balancing the maximum student slots available with the budget is more of a challenge for poor school districts. In Ohio at least I have a feeling some wealthier school districts are using IEPs to artificially raise school wide student test scores as well, since these students don't always count towards the scores and rankings (I am not sure exactly how it works as it depends on the grade level and other specifics).
• twirlock 7y ago
  Oh look some quasi-contrarian defense of the priest caste's shitty epistemology and its side-effects is the top comment. What a surprise.
• interlocutor 7y ago
  It is easy to see these families as manipulating the system, but then so are colleges that charge $300,000 for 4-year college. College costs are rising much faster than the rate of inflation. In many cases these colleges are raising tuition for the same reason pharmaceutical companies are raising prices to insane levels -- because they can. It doesn't surprise me one bit that smart families are coming up with ways to beat this system. If colleges aren't playing fair why should they?
  • vharuck 7y ago
    Because society, which had decided poorer families should be able to access college, doesn't have to stand for abuse. This kind of "what about"-ism requires admission of unethical behavior. How can anyone try to justify it after saying they're just as bad as the other guy? And these people aren't "smart" for discovering they can deceive the government for gain.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
• monksy 7y ago
  That's kind of how we built our system that we operate. It's a "smart persons' benefit" type of system. We could have a flat percentage based system. However, we/Americans, hate the idea of non-fairness. (it's built in our dna) So we end up taking a simple system and keep making exceptions to it. It's great, but it's gotten really complex. For example: If you put a simple tax system in (everyone pays 7%) the claim is that "Poorer people are negatively affected". (Their value of the money is higher than a much richer person) However, when you have a progressive tax system, you have people concerned about being in higher tax brackets. (Really isn't that big of a concern in a progressive system, but it's harder to do the math).
• extra88 7y ago
  There may be some kids from well-off families getting bullshit diagnoses to justify IEPs that include accommodations like extra time on exams. There are definitely kids from not well-off families who have legitimate needs that are not met because they can't afford to pay for the medical evaluations to justify the accommodations. American colleges and universities have already been trending away from emphasizing high-stakes standardized tests in their admissions decisions. The tests themselves should be changed to make speed of answering not such a critical part of test-taking strategy. There would still be students with serious disabilities who would need additional time and other accommodations but there would be no need for extra time for kids with ADD, ADHD, etc., real or imagined.